Cherrytale

For the past month I’ve had the urge to do a (relatively) big felting project. When I was in England for my storytelling course we did it every tuesday for almost 3 hours, wetfelting, because when you’re telling stories you’re using your head a lot, felting is a good way to get back into your body. I’ve had this image in my mind for a while of a white coat for a doll with embroidery on it. Today I plucked up courage and went to get materials. Olive soap and bubble wrap. The shopping already was disastrous, because the hobby shop had neither of the things I needed, so the drugstore and the office store were my last resort.

The officestore did sell bubble wrap but only in packages of 5 meters, while I needed maybe 50 centimeters… so now I have 10 squares of 50×50 centimeters of bubble wrap that may or may not get used in the future. And the drugstore didn’t sell olive soap, but they sold some strange soap that had a small percentage of olive oil in it… in packages of 4 bars… more than I needed, but not expensive, so aw well, good enough for now.

The disastrous shopping didn’t bring me down. So when I got home – the fun could begin! I had wool already so I washed the dishes to make space on my sink (we live in a shoebox so there’s no other place to do it) and placed the wool. I made a very small patch of felt to see if I still had it in me and quickly remembered that felting was quite a boring process when doing it alone. And my hands started hurting. But I did not lose my high spirits and laid out the wool for the BIG project.

Then I googled a little bit for techniques to make felting easier… and found two fantastic suggestions.

1. Roll the project in the bubble wrap. Well, I knew this already, but this sample then rolled the bubble wrap in a towel, which was quite a good suggestion. I have a short attention span so in the mean time I had moved to the iMac to check out what was happening in the online world what the next step of the felting was, with the roll on my lap, so I was kneading and checking the computer out at the same time, but then I felt the towel get wetter and wetter and soapy water came down dripping both sides…that’s when I got tired of the felting, but luckily that brings me to the next suggestion:

2. Washing machine felting. In short this means to wrap the whole project in a towel, secure it with safetypins, and with a little bit of detergent throw the whole thing in the washing machine.

That’s where I’m at right now. I stole one of the common washing machines and right now it’s aggressively spinning to felt my project. It feels a bit like I’m cheating but… as long as I can fulfill the image I have in my mind, I think that’s allright…

To be continued.

Edit… OOPS! Well the washing machine works like a dream, it’s sturdier than any other felting project I have ever done. BUT it felted so much that it came out like a sheep, and the towel worked like velcro, so the project was really hard to get off. Besides that it’s a lot smaller than I anticipated. Now I’m going to try again but with another piece of fabric and thinner layers of wool. Wish me luck…

Last weekend I was lucky to be able to go to Fröken Skicklig’s Dollmaking course. It was something I had been excited about for a while already, and I went prepared: I already made the doll a complete outfit so I didn’t have to bring her home naked.

There were 9 of us, enthusiastic students, Juliane, the best teacher in the world and of course Ineke, the best host in the world. We drank lots of tea and ate lots of cake while we shared lots of stories and… the dolls of course!

It’s so magical to see your doll appear from a little bit of wool, some fabric, and lots of love and patience. Especially patience…

This is the little girl that I went home with after two days of hard work. And then the work still wasn’t done yet!

I finished her wig…

I gave her a bellybutton…

Bought her some baby socks…

And knitted her some baby shoes…

And made her an eyepatch! Arr!!! Actually, she’s not a pirate, but she’s waiting for her eye to get repaired. Because of an accident she now has only one eye, but not for long! We’ll fix her up soon!

In any case – my weekend was delightful and I recommend Juliane’s course to everyone!

Have a look at her blog for pictures of the other little girls that were born last weekend: http://frokenskicklig.blogspot.com/2010/04/our-doll-making-weekend-in-amsterdam.html

Right now, I’m in the train back to Leeuwarden. My boyfriend R and I were in Zwolle, where I told a story at ‘De Verhalenboot’ (The Storyboat). A beautiful and very inspiring place designed for storytellers. Tonight there were five tellers, including myself. Some beginners, some intermediate but all managed to captivate me with their tales!

I told my story ‘The Witty Princess’, a tale I’ve been telling quite often lately, but this was, by far, my best Dutch performance of it so far! The whole atmosphere of the boat feels just right and that triggered a lot of spontaneity within the story, making it more vivid than any former performances I have done.

After the performance I spoke to a colleague storyteller, a beginner, who gave me some feedback. I really appreciated that! She gave me some awareness of my speed and articulation. Storytelling is so hard in Dutch but I’m getting better! I also spoke to the organizers of the storyfestival in June, and there might be a place left for me to fill up, including some coachingsessions.

A wonderful evening!

Monday morning; that means a new intention of the week.

My intention this week will be:

Sew something with my sewing machine every day.

This in preparation of Fröken Skicklig’s doll making course in Amsterdam next weekend, which I am attending! I’m looking forward to it quite a bit, so sewing is a good way to get into the right mood and besides that I can’t take home a naked doll. So by the end of this week the doll will have lots of nice clothes to wear, and I’ll have gained a little bit of extra sewing experience to go into the course just a little better prepared.

I’ll keep you updated with pictures of finished projects!

I’m in my third year of the course “Communication & Multimedia Design” at NHL University in The Netherlands. This is one of the things that used to match with my interests and really seemed like the best course to follow when I started. But now, Multimedia Design is the least thing on my mind.

Luckily the structure of the course is really free and I have the opportunity to implement my “new” interests into it. They actually support it! Last semester I went to England to follow a 3-month Storytelling course which I could also use for my study. It was great. And now I’m following a minor in Entrepreneurship, that “teaches” us (In fact it’s mostly figuring things out by yourself) how to write a business plan and about all the other things you need to know before you can own your very own company.

Today I presented my plans to a small group of about 7 students and 3 teachers. Short two-minute presentations, and after that some time for questions. In short, my company will revolve all around stories. It’s a wide subject. You can read, write, tell, enact and listen to them. You can use them for entertainment but also for teaching purposes. And because stories are such a wide subject, my company will be like that, too.

It will be a company that hosts multiple activities. I have some ideas for storytelling combined with multimedia (the school will be so pleased). But my greatest desire is to physically tell stories to all kinds of audiences. And host children’s parties, write books, make pretty things, etcetera.

So when I told all of these things, none of the people had a clear vision of storytelling, so I was asked to tell them a story right there and then. After a few moments of thinking what story I could tell within 5 minutes, I told them “There’s some sky in this pie”, a classic by Joan Aiken. A children’s story but so very well received, especially by older people! It was a bit strange to tell a story unprepared, but great fun too. The feedback I received was that I seem a lot livelier and that my emotions show better when I’m telling stories. I also feel very alive when I’m telling. And that’s the side of me that I want to show to people!

So I guess by setting up a storytelling company, I’ve found the right thing for me to do!

Telling a story at the Michael Hall Christmas Fair. (November 2009, Forest Row, England)

It’s like I’m inside an egg and slowly hatching. The shell is cracking and sometimes a little bit of new light pours in, and I’m trying to break out into that light. Every time a crack appears, I find out something new about myself and learn something about what I might be doing in the future.

This is not a new process, it’s something I’ve been in for almost a year now, I think. I’ve discovered a lot about myself. About the things I thought I loved to do, but that don’t seem so interesting anymore. And the things that do seem interesting while they didn’t a year ago. But things have been moving faster, lately.

If I think back to it, the seeds of those things that I am currently discovering and finding to love, were planted a long time ago, too, some even during my early childhood. And perhaps I have always known in which direction my life would go. But like an egg needs time before it hatches, so did those little direction-seeds. They were resting safely under the surface for years and years until the conditions were just right and now they’re growing into beautiful flowers.

Everything that happened in your life up till now was a preparation for this very moment.

I am Wiske. Welcome to this weblog! Here I will write about all the things I find interesting and that keep me busy. I hope this will become a colorful and inspiring place!

Love,

Wiske